It’s a(nother) holiday week in the US, where markets will be closed Friday to honor that time a wily gang of traitorous, well-spoken tax cheats decided they’d sooner hang than keep paying tribute to their colonial benefactor.
And thus was born a great nation. Of genocidal slaveowners unironically proclaiming equal rights endowed by the Almighty.
The blood they shed in the name of unalienable, God-given liberties was not in vain. For a great many excellent things did spring from those men’s declaration and defense of so many self-evident egalitarian truths. Things like chattel slavery. And the Trail of Tears. And My Lai. And Haditha.
I’m just kidding, everybody. I mean, that is a more accurate version of the story than what we tell school children, but… well, what can I say? Little white lies in the service of historical whitewashing never hurt any white people. So, no harm no foul.
If you’re offended, you’re new here. Lampooning America’s sordid historical legacy is a July 4 tradition, just like gallows humor in the service of calling organized religion the bane of humanity’s existence is a Christmas tradition.
You’ll get used to it if you stick around long enough. I promise. You might even laugh occasionally. Caustic holiday humor is to Heisenberg Report what “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” is to Thanksgiving: A time-honored custom.
Anyone who’s anybody on Wall Street’s on block leave, so it’ll be left to the junior ranks to parse the June jobs report, which the BLS — in their infinite wisdom — decided to release on Thursday instead of just waiting until July 10.
Consensus expects 113,000 from the NFP headline. That’d be a marked deceleration from the prior three months’ robust readouts, but a solid gain nevertheless.
Recall that May’s report, inclusive of revisions, found the three-month average accelerating to 188,000, the swiftest pace in more than two years.
The jobless rate’s seen steady at 4.3%. Do note: The unrounded UNR print for May was 4.296%. Headline CPI’s 4.249%. So, we’re very, very close to inflation exceeding the jobless rate. On the (rare) occasions that happened historically, it presaged curve inversions.
However you cut it (no policy pun intended), the June jobs report’s very unlikely to make the case for easier US monetary policy. The opposite, probably. Same goes for ADP private hiring, which is seen printing 116,000 on Wednesday.
As the figure shows, a consensus ADP headline would push the three-month average beyond 100,000 for the first time since February of last year, which is to say for the first time since the tariff blitz.
The Challenger job cuts update, also due Wednesday, will be eyed for more evidence that AI’s prompting layoffs across the tech sector. Recall that AI became the most-cited reason for 2026 job cuts in the May Challenger report.
Also on the US docket, in order of importance: ISM manufacturing (seen in expansion territory for a sixth month), JOLTS (which is coming off the fourth-largest month-to-month gain in series history), Conference Board consumer confidence and updates on the marquee home price gauges.
“If you’re offended, you’re new here.” Welcome!
Any chance the spark in hiring over the last few months is related to former “victim of AI” layoffs getting re-hired as AI hasn’t quite lived up to its billing?
It looks like the real fireworks may be in the ME (again) this week.
Let’s not forget the importance of rum to those erudite tax-cheating traitors…smuggling was an act of patriotism!
Per Google:
The intertwined history of rum production, smuggling, and taxation formed the backbone of the colonial era:The Economic Engine: Rum was a central pillar of the colonial economy, often accounting for 80% of New England’s exports. By 1770, the colonies operated over 140 distilleries, producing nearly 5 million gallons annually.The Smuggling Economy: Under the British Navigation Acts, colonists were legally required to trade only with English colonies. Because French molasses (primarily from Saint Domingue) was much cheaper, colonial merchants regularly engaged in widespread smuggling to feed their distilleries.Rebellion and Taxes: To control this lucrative industry and pay off war debts, Britain passed the heavily despised Molasses Act of 1733 and the Sugar Act of 1764. These acts crushed profit margins and led many colonists, including prominent merchants like John Hancock and the House of Hancock, to brand smuggling as a patriotic act.Cultural Impact: Because it was cheap, abundant, and warming, rum was consumed daily by virtually all colonists, from farmers to founding fathers. It was even used as currency in the transatlantic slave trade.